Galleria Massimodeluca kicks off the 2014 season with a unique exhibition: Tanto tempo fa, quando la terra era piatta (Long ago, when the Earth was flat), a double solo show featuring Giusy Pirrotta and Elisa Strinna, curated by Alice Ginaldi. The two young artists, whose work follows very different paths and expression, will be showing two specific and independent installations, which have been specially conceived and created for the exhibition.

The title of the exhibition Tanto tempo fa, quando la terra era piatta has been directly borrowed from the children’s’ book of the same title published in 1979 by Emme Edizioni: written by Paolo Caboara and illustrated by Aimone Sambuy with the contribution of graphics by Bruno Munari, the book is a collection of three African legends which tell the story of how the mountains were born, the history of the sun and the discovery of fire. Each tale tells, in its own way, a subject common to all mythologies: the mysterious connection between the earthly and the heavenly. In a similar vein the exhibition will develop a two-way dialogue on landscape and its interpretation, which is so inextricably linked to human perception. The aesthetic translation of landscape for Giusy Pirrotta thus becomes a deconstruction of colour spectrums, shapes and memories, while for Elisa Strinna it is the linguistic recodification of time through the natural material filtered through the “artificial” sound code.

More specifically, Giusy Pirrotta will create a project which examines light and its composition through the additive colours of red, green and blue in a composite installation. “For the last year the artist has turned her attention towards a considered reflection which takes as its starting point the concept of moving image, its perceptive genesis, to then stage optic-light experiments-explains Alice Ginaldi, curator- In its attempt to give the elusiveness of video back its objectual and structuralist significance, Pirotta’s work is particularly focused on its relation with architecture and with equipment used for its viewing.”

Elisa Strinna will be introducing her new work Articolazioni oltre il linguaggio. La materia, il suo ritmo e le sue declinazioni (Utterances beyond language. The subject, its rhythm and its declensions), developed in collaboration with the artist Elena Mazzi, which mainly involves two pieces which dialogue within a single space. “Both interventions are attempts at translation” –says Ginaldi-“the idea is tocompare and contrast two different testimonies which result from differing historical processes: that of Nature and that of Mankind. The exhibition will consist of a sonoric reading of unusual texts which will activate different sensory perceptions of the same phenomenon, in the attempt to produce new ways to interpret the world around us.”

The catalog of the exhibition will present, for Elisa Strinna, the contributions of Ilaria Gianni, Trial Version, Bruno Giorgini and Joseph Combs; for Giusy Pirrotta the contributions of Nicky Hamlyn and Attila Fattori Franchini.

Giusy Pirrotta (Reggio Calabria, 1982) lives and works in London. Her work focuses on the study and manipulation of moving images and the rules of its representation. Her training includes painting, sculpture, photography and performance art at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze. After a brief stay in Milan, she moved to London to study for a Masters in Fine Art at the Central Saint Martin College of Art and Design where she began working with different mediums in a structuralist style, including 16mm film. She did an internship at PresTech Film Laboratories learning about the restoration and conservation of film, and spent a period as Artist in Residence at the Central Saint Martin College of Art and Design in the Film & Video department. She is currently in her first year of research at the University for the Creative Arts In Farnham, working on a PhD project studying the moving image and its relationship with architecture. In 2012 she won the Red Mansion Art Prize spending a month in Beijing with a final exhibition at the Royal College of Art, London. She was a finalist for a Nova Award for the best work produced as part of a Masters in Fine Art 2011 at the Central Saint Martin College, and exhibited at the Lethaby Gallery in London. Her most recent exhibitions include: Le figlie di Eva, Fama Gallery, Verona; Journey in the center of my mind, Bunkhouse, Madrid; Analougue recurring, Lo & Behold gallery, London; Young at art 2013, Maca Museo Arti Contemporanea, Cosenza; Lumen, Mars, Milan; and Future solo show, Murata centoventidue, Bari. She has recently been shortlisted for the Francesco Fabbri Prize, in the Emerging Arts category.

Elisa Strinna (Padua, 1982). After graduating from the Accademia di Belle Arti in Bologna, she continued her studies in Production and Design of the Visual Arts at IUAV in Venice. Strinna’s work explores how we structure our perception and our fields of knowledge. Going back to original sources, remnants of human and natural history, the artist explores the information available to create different narratives. These narratives reveal intrinsically ‘cultural’ aspects of nature, challenging all the concepts which restrict cultural and natural processes, and narratives which restore original interpretations of human history, challenging the established production systems of truth and knowledge. In 2013 she was invited to participate in the 5x52013 Award at Espai d'art contemporani de Castelló (Spain) and won the Premio Combat Prize (Livorno) for sculpture. In 2012 she was invited to the Taipei Biennial 2012, Taiwan, and to the Nature Addict Travelling Academy (Documenta, Kassel). In 2011 she won the 13th annual Movin’up Prize, awarded to promote young Italian artists in the wider world. In 2011/2010 she was one of the winners of the 6ARTISTA Prize at the Fondazione Pastificio Cerere which includes spending nine months between Rome and Paris. Strinna took part in the XVI Advanced Course in Visual Arts at the Fondazione Ratti in Como where Hans Haacke was visiting professor (2010). In 2009 she attended a workshop with the artist Peter Friedl at the Fondazione Spinola Banna, Poirino (Turin). Between 2008 and 2009 she was awarded a workshop space at the Fondazione Bevilacqua la Masa in Venice.

Alice Ginaldi (Trieste, 1983) is a curator and art critic. In 2007 she graduated from DAMS in Bologna with a degree in History of Contemporary Art. She worked for some years managing the Pixxelmusic festival of digital music and art before becoming responsible for the arts programme at the Metropolitana no-profit space in Gorizia, Italy.She contributes to the magazine www.genius-online.it, and has worked for a number of years with the Galleria Comunale d'Arte Contemporanea in Monfalcone on educational projects in schools. She has periodically organized art workshops for children related to ongoing exhibitions in collaboration with the Fondazione Ca.Ri.Go. and Musei Provinciali in Gorizia since 2011. She has curated exhibitions and edited publications for a variety of national galleries, museums, associations and awards including MARS Milan, CARS artist residency in Omegna, the Dolomiti Contemporanee di Belluno and the Terna Prize. She has been Head of Visual Arts at the Udine Homepage Festival and managed the regional Youth Talent FVG project, working principally with young artists. In 2013 she qualified as a teacher of Art History for secondary education.